In brief

PSEB engineers’ association alleges bias by chairman
Reacting sharply to the suspension of four engineers in Rajpura allegedly for “mishandling a Rs 2-crore power theft case”,members of the Ludhiana PSEB Engineers Association stated that the action of Chairman H S Brar was biased against the staff. Bhupinder Singh,general secretary of the association,said,“The chairman favours only a few officers and despite acute staff shortage,he is not appreciating the work of the engineers. For a small mistake of the lower staff,engineers are being punished.” Spokesperson Jaswant Singh Jafar added that they will intensify the stir against the chairman if their problems are not addressed. Brar,however,said,“Suspension has been ordered after the inquiry report found the engineers guilty. If the engineers have a problem with me,they should come for talks rather than issuing press statements.” He refuted allegations of bias against employees.

Basant Kavya Sammelan held

The Hindi Sahitya Parishad,Punjab,organised a Basant Kavya Sammelan,in which poetesses from across the country participated on Thursday. The event was held in Government College for Women. A session to discuss the art of story writing was also held. Story writer Jassika Sharma from Delhi,Vidya Bindu from Lucknow and many others participated in the session. The progrrame was organised by Professor Shakuntla Srivastav,former Head of the Hindi department,Government College for Women.

4 new varieties of crops approved
The state variety approval committee,which met at Punjab Agricultural University today,approved four new varieties of crops for cultivation in Punjab. The new varieties released include SL-744,a variety of soybean; SML-832,a variety of spring/summer moongbean and MRC-7071 BG II and MRC-7031 BG-II,Bt Cotton hybrids.